The present disclosure relates generally to an arrangement for, and a method of, detecting motion of one or more targets in a venue having multiple regions.
Motion detection is widely used in many domestic and commercial applications, such as triggering surveillance cameras, controlling lighting, monitoring the movement of products and/or objects and/or people, optimizing energy usage, etc. Generally speaking, low cost motion detection employs passive infrared (PIR) sensors that are sensitive to radiation at infrared wavelengths. In a venue having multiple regions in which motion of a target is to be detected, either multiple PIR sensors are used, or a single PIR sensor is used in common with multiple Fresnel lenses. A single PIR sensor precludes the ability to determine in which region the motion occurred. When this ability is desired, it has proven relatively expensive to supply and install multiple PIR sensors, and to focus multiple lenses on the respective multiple regions of the venue.
It is also known to install smart cameras with local processing and Ethernet cameras with backend processing to detect target motion in multiple regions of the venue. These cameras capture video information from all the regions, extract the captured video information for each region, and process the extracted video information from each region, typically executing complex algorithms, to determine which region contains motion. In practice, such cameras are relatively costly to supply and install, are relatively large in size, consume high amounts of electrical power, and often require an initial calibration during setup, and subsequent calibrations during any subsequent changes in the venue. In addition, Ethernet cameras require costly interfacing network circuitry, significant network bandwidth, and additional network server resources to process the video information.
Accordingly, there is a need to reliably detect motion at low cost in multiple regions of a venue with the ability to distinguish in which region there was motion.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and locations of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The arrangement and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.